Friday, February 24, 2017

An Assult on Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press

I try not to get to hyperbolic anymore. Because it is to easy to scream the sky is falling. But I do worry that President Trump and the Republican Political Party (not Republican voters per say) have recently crossed the line from blowhard to scary. Two actions, occurring right now, frighten the hell out of me.

First - Trump has gone off the rails accusing the FBI of being in league with "his enemies" because they won't stay that his administration has no communications with Russia before the election.

Second - President Trump has demaned the FBI round up the leakers immediately. Very much in the vein of round up the usual suspects from Casablanca.

AND THESE ARE NOT THE THINGS THAT REALLY FRIGHTEN ME!!

In actually, "let's ignore the constitution"... items that scare me.

1) Today his Spokesman refused to allow major news outlets to the press briefing (link). CNN, New York Times, and the major news networks were not allowed in. Instead the major friendly outlets were invited: Brietbart, Washington Times (Sun Mung Moon's paper) and a few others. This treads dangerously close to removing freedom of the press. And a first for our country.

2) The Republicans in 12 states have started to outlaw protests in some forms. In Arizona they have passed a law that equates protesters with Terrorists. Including the legal ability to arrest people for planning a protest AND seizing their property for simply planning a protest online. (link). In South Dakota and other states they are making it legal to run your car into protesters that are on a public roadway.

Yeah, that's fucked up.

You can say what you want about Democrats, but we never made taking lives legal because they had a different opinion. And we didn't shred the First Amendment (allowing Gay Marriage for others is NOT prohibiting your free exercise of your religion.)